Tape Of Mother Accused In Death Of Baby Weighed

November 10, 2000|By Art Barnum, Tribune Staff Writer.

A videotape of a tearful young Bensenville mother showing how she allegedly pushed the head of her 5-month-old daughter into the cushion of a couch to stop her from crying was shown in court Thursday in an attempt to allow its introduction as evidence.

The 5-minute tape showed Mercedes Roman, 22, sobbing in the interview room of the Bensenville police station. By using a teddy bear, Roman showed how she placed her hand on the back of the child's head and pushed it into the couch.

"You don't even know how hard you are doing it," she said. "I didn't mean to do it. I love my three children."

She had told police that after the child stopped crying she took a shower before going to prepare a bottle for the child. She said that when she returned to the couch, where the infant had been lying face down, "ooze was coming out of her nose and mouth."

She said she tried CPR and could see the child's chest moving in and out, but that she wasn't able to breathe on her own.

"I got scared. I got panicky. I just left. I walked around. I didn't know what to do," she said.

No ruling was made Thursday on whether to admit the tape into evidence.

After the Sept. 16 incident in her home in the 900 block of Medinah Circle, she fled and left her two other young children home alone.

When her boyfriend returned home and found the dead child, he called police. Shortly after police arrived about 1 a.m. the next day, Roman called from Schiller Park, where she said she had walked.

She was taken to the Bensenville Police Station where she was questioned, wrote a three-page statement and appeared in the videotape.

Police said she claims she held the child's head down for about 1 1/2 minutes.

DuPage prosecutors have charged Roman with murder, claiming that she killed the child out of frustration because the baby would not stop crying.

Defense attorneys are trying to have the written and videotaped confession thrown out of the pending trial, claiming she made the incriminating statements to appease the police detectives after hours of interrogation. The defense claims the likely cause of death may have been a plastic bag that was wrapped around the couch that the child was able to reach and accidentally suffocated.